Mumbai Indians keen to continue momentum after KXIP win, says Rohit Sharma

Mumbai Indians were placed in a precarious situation in the ongoing season of the Indian Premier League (IPL), garnering only 2 wins from 8 games. Thus the Rohit Sharma-led squad were tied in a do or die situation when they faced the mighty Kings XI Punjab last night. However, the blue outfit cantered to a tense win last night, defeating KXIP by six wickets. They chased down the target of 175 runs at the Holkar Stadium, Indore with an over to spare to keep themselves alive in the tournament.

With the win, the bottom-placed Mumbai have climbed to the fifth spot and will be keen to keep the form going. Echoing on the same lines during last night’s post-match presentation, Rohit cleared that MI cannot afford to lose momentum going ahead.

The 31-year old was quoted saying, “Playoffs are important but we need to win games to reach there. Big challenge for us to continue this momentum from hereon. In the past we have won games and then gone on to lose a few games. Don’t want that to happen again. Today was a perfect night for us, we did exactly what we spoke of.”

Held myself back for the end

“Wasn’t really easy early on but we knew that we had a lot of depth in our batting. (On him batting lower down the order) The way we went about our chase in the first 10 overs, I felt we needed momentum. So, Hardik, the way he plays, was suited to do that. Hence, I held myself back for the end and having played here before, I know what kind of shots work. Always feels good when you finish off the chase.”

Match Details

Rohit and Krunal Pandya delivered in desperate times as Mumbai managed to stay alive in the IPL with a clinical win. The skipper scored 24* off 15 while Krunal sped his way to 31* off 12 as the duo shared a match-winning 56-run stand off just 21 balls to reach the 175-run target in 19 overs.

Earlier, the home team was well-placed to post a big total after being 78 for one in 10 overs. Gayle collected just one run off the first eight balls he faced before racing to his half-century, his fourth fifty-plus score in five innings of the IPL so far.

However, KXIP lost their way in the middle overs and it was Marcus Stoinis who hit 22-runs in last over from Pandya, else KXIP would have ended up way short of the expected mark.

For all the latest cricket news and other updates follow CricTracker.